


Viscosity

by MasterOfAllImagination



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Texting, your basic mystrade standbys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:34:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6902353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfAllImagination/pseuds/MasterOfAllImagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is not by force but by frequency that water hollows the stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In which Lestrade pursues Mycroft, Mycroft’s powers of self-denial are remarkable, and eventually one of them has to break. Plot points likely consciously and subconsciously lifted from every single Mystrade fic I’ve been binge reading over the past three days. Mycroft’s scotch habit is, of course, a not-so-subtle nod to the series of the same name by earlgreytea68, which I cannot recommend highly enough. In fact, why are you still here? Go read that instead.

Donovan leans a shoulder against his doorway and declares, “Bit early for that, innit?”

Lestrade screws the cap back onto the flask quickly, but not too quickly, because haste suggests guilt, and he most certainly doesn't feel guilty for stealing a bit of whiskey at his desk after the night he’s just had.

“Depends on your perspective.  If I never went to bed, is it really morning?”

Donovan steps closer and peers at her boss.  Not too closely, though, because the haggardness of the skin under his eyes and the grey tinge of the rest of his face is a bit too similar to what she herself saw in the mirror this morning to be comforting.  

Wisely, she slaps a file down on his desk and says nothing.  “Don’t suppose you’ve turned on the telly in the last hour?”

“Not unless we’ve suddenly had one installed, no.  Have we?”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”  Donovan doesn’t even try for sarcastic.  “Your pet’s chewed off his leash again.”

The sinking sensation Lestrade feels is made even more unsettling by having just drunk whiskey on an empty stomach.  He pulls the file forwards, eyes flicking between it and Donovan as he reads.  She waits with arms folded.  Lestrade flips through the papers: photographs, responding officer reports, and preliminary eyewitness statements. 

“Is this a joke?”

“’Fraid not.”

Lestrade flips just a bit more frantically.  Sure, he’s tired, but he isn’t  _dreaming,_ is he?

On second thought, he pulls out the whiskey again and takes a fortifying swig, because this is, after all, Sherlock Holmes that he’s dealing with.  A blurred line between reality and insanity comes with his turf.  

“Want some?” he asks, proffering the flask.

Her hand briefly unclasps from her elbow, but the gesture turns into an abortive wave.  “I’m fine, thanks.”

“I’m not.  I think I’ll take this with me.”

“So you’ll handle it?”

“Of course I’ll bloody well handle it.  Do puppies clean up their own messes?”

Donovan scoffs.  “Oh, he’s a puppy now, is he?”

Lestrade equivocates as he shrugs on his jacket, getting a disagreeable lungful of his own 24-hour odour as he sweeps it around his shoulders.  “Energetic. Eager to impress.  ‘Chewed off his leash,’ you said it yourself.  If the shoe fits.”

He’s out his door before she can say anything else, stamping out exhaustion with hurried footsteps, counting on the movement to shoot some alertness into his weary bones.  He shouts for Dimmock, and that helps, too.

He’s off to see a banker about a tunnel.

* * *

Mycroft takes the paper from his assistant.  His thumb twitches twice; two short strokes over the matte-printed photograph.  “Has he seen this yet?”

“I’m sure his people have been made aware of it.”

“Lovely,” Mycroft murmurs.  Except when he says  _lovely_  what he in fact means is  _every imaginable expression of its opposite_ , and this morning’s assistant is familiar enough with his work persona to appreciate this irony with a wry twist of one perfectly penciled eyebrow.  

Mycroft leans forward to rap on the partition of the car with the cane of his umbrella.  “Change of plans, Harvey.”  He hands the photograph off to the assistant and leans back, folding his hands over his stomach.  “Barclay’s on Charing Cross, if you would be so kind.”

* * *

Lestrade falls heavily into the police car and scrubs furiously at his eyes with the heel of his hand.  Dimmock gets in next to him and waits politely, looking out of the windshield.  

“Sir?”  he asks when the moment lengthens.  “Aren’t we going somewhere?”

“Yeah, just-- gimme a second.”

He hadn’t dared do it in the office for fear of prying eyes-- or perhaps more accurately, a paranoia of the Yard’s CCTVs-- but though Mycroft Holmes may be the British Government made flesh, he certainly isn’t up to the sheer meniality of bugging each and every car at the Yard’s disposal.  With a wriggle, he extracts his cell phone from his jeans pocket and unlocks it, keeping it angled slightly away from Dimmock.  The glare of the morning sun on the screen makes Lestrade squint.

_10:53 pm  
What if I say no?-GL_

_10:56pm  
I was not making a request. -MH_

_10:57pm  
I’m a private citizen and I can do whatever I please. -GL_

_1:45am  
If you force my hand, I will rescind the courtesy of an illusion of choice. -MH_

_1:48am  
If that’s just a fancy way of saying you’ll make me, I'm calling your bluff. -GL_

_3:20am  
Do not tempt me. -MH_  

_3:35am  
What's the worst you can do?  Block my number? -GL_

Lestrade renews his palm’s attack on his eyeballs, half to hide his chagrin from Dimmock and half to physically scrub away the visual evidence of his own idiocy in so relentlessly pursuing a man who is so aggressively  _not interested_.  Weeks and months of careful, neutral conversation; exchanged at all hours of the day and night, and if Lestrade had known how to look for subtext he'd have  _looked_ , dammit, but Mycroft is a lead-lined box and he a poor useless divorcee.  

Last night he'd been tired and frustrated enough to break down and give it a leap. Except trust falls only work when the other person catches you, and now the man didn't even want to speak to him anymore. 

Dimmock still respects Lestrade enough to pretend not to be looking at him.  Donovan wouldn’t've, Lestrade knows, and at least he can be thankful for  _that_  small miracle.

_3:45am  
How unimaginative of you, Detective Inspector.  Goodnight. -MH_

There were a few more pathetic one-sided texts from Lestrade after that, but no more with “MH” appended.  He scrubs his face one last time for good measure, as if his calloused hand were a cheese grater that could shred the little accusatory letters from his memory.  His vague hopes of it all having been a sleep-deprivation-induced hallucination were all for naught. It seemed today was not his day for convenient excuses.  

He shoves the key in the ignition and drives.

* * *

“Detective Inspector.”

“Mycroft.”

“You look tired.”

“You don’t.”

“I do hope your work isn’t taking up too much of your time.  It’s not healthy for a man your age to keep the sleep patterns of a university student.”

“Could say the same of you.”

“Demands of the job, I’m afraid.”

…and the pure flippancy of Mycroft’s comment is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or, in this case, the over-worked detective inspector's back.  “Oh, so that’s what you were doing up and texting at four-in-the-morning, is it?” Lestrade accuses, rounding on him.  “ _Just_  your job?  That’s a bit cold, even for you.”

Mycroft looks around with his aquiline nose held high and his umbrella clutched close.  Police mill about the scene, cordoning off the detritus-strewn street outside the bank and setting up caution tape around a gaping hole in the asphalt.  “Are we really going to do this here?  I thought I made my position quite clear to you last night.”

Lestrade shoves his hands in his pockets and makes a conscious effort to cap his voice. “Yeah, well. It’s like I said. I don’t give up that easy. Do your worst.”

“I don’t want to, Lestrade,” he says, as though commenting on the weather.  His hands are turning pale on the umbrella handle, though, so Lestrade has a bit of an inkling that this is just another one of his petty little masks.  Layers on layers on layers of posh wool suitings and outdated pocket-watch chains and other things that his fingers itch to peel apart but which are closed to him by far more sturdy measures than simple buttons.

Mycroft places his umbrella tip carefully against the asphalt.  “But I will,” he goes on to say.  “If I have to.  If you make me.  Which is why I’m  _asking_ you--”

“So now it’s asking, is it? I thought it was  _telling_.”

“Lestrade--”

“Gregory.  Greg, preferably; but maybe a few extra syllables sounds more professional.  That’s what you’re comfortable with, right? Professional distance?”

“ _Gregory_.”

Lestrade’s mouth twists with triumph. “Mycroft,” he drawls.

Eyes rake over him like radar, assessing, gauging, cataloguing, calculating down to the thousandth decimal place.  Lestrade takes his hands out of his pockets and stands as closely to attention as a civilian who has never been militarily trained can manage.  He’s not hiding anything.  Secrets are Mycroft’s territory, not his; god knows his wife force-fed him a big and bitter-enough banquet of lies to put him off the taste of deception for the rest of his life.

The path of Mycroft’s eyes eventually slows and stops, coming to rest somewhere in the vicinity of Lestrade’s wrinkled collar.  Lestrade wonders what he sees.  Blood, from yesterday’s crime scene?  Coffee stain from where his shaking hands spilled last night’s fourth cup?  Sweat? Wrinkles, lines; perhaps a glowing neon sign broadcasting the blinking _trust me_  Lestrade so desperately wants Mycroft to acknowledge?

Mycroft takes a step back.  Just as he does, Donovan strolls up, trailing a whole train of people behind her: first Sherlock, covered head to toe in dirt and London tarmac; then John close on his heels; an eager Anderson (still a strange sight for Lestrade’s eyes-- it’s funny how guilt and death can change people; except it’s really not funny at all) bringing up the caboose.

Just like that, Mycroft is busy again, and Lestrade is forgotten.

Which is just as well, because Lestrade’s fingers have somehow balled into fists at his side.

* * *

 2 _:08pm  
Drinks? -GL_

Mycroft looks out of the window and mourns for himself within the space of one sip of scotch and the next.  By the time the sear of it has settled to something more tempered in his throat, the moment of self pity is over, and he puts down the glass and the hours-old message. Unfortunately, the phone vibrates again not a minute later, and his mouth curves downward into familiar, well-used frown lines.

_8:31pm  
Doesn’t have to be drinks. -GL_

Against the will of both gravity and Mycroft’s better judgement, he smiles.  He curls the phone tightly in his hand and taps it twice against his lips.  Then he stands and sets it very deliberately on an end table at the far side of his second-most-private office, and turns to more important things, shedding the smile as he goes.

For the next three hours, he works in silence and glances at the phone exactly once.  This is not so much a mark of Mycroft’s self restraint as it is an example of his stubborn and utter refusal to entertain hope in the way a _normal_ person would-- normal, in this case, being a highly flattering term in comparison to the one Sherlock would employ.   _Hope_  implies a certain degree of luck, and luck is useless when one has his powers of observation and the capacity to analyze and predict based on the data he gathers.

By now he has mined Lestrade so thoroughly for usable data that if his information were a physical quantity, Mycroft could open a business and start commoditizing. And from this treasure he has refined an enormous catalogue of predictions, far more accurate than any weather service and far more reliable.  His catalogue tells him exactly five things when he cross-references Lestrade and Texting, and they are:

  1. Lestrade is persistent
  2. Lestrade does not respond well to silence
  3. Lestrade is fully capable of understanding implied social cues, but
  4. Lestrade will ignore such cues if he feels a more concrete declaration can be gained.
  5. (See point 1.)



In retrospect, Mycroft will admit with due ruefulness how perfectly matched they are.  He, the immovable object, and the dear misguided detective inspector, the unstoppable force.  His own preferred modus operandi: the infinitely interpretable medium of silence. Lestrade’s: unambiguous confrontation.  And, as a casualty of the clash of these two irreconcilable attributes, the alarmingly rapid depletion of his liquor cabinet.

Which would fail first? Lestrade’s persistence, or Mycroft’s scotch? He pours himself a finger without looking, downs it; and adds another two to the glass.  

Luckily for him, one can always buy more scotch.

Somewhere between the third glass and an inexorable inch towards inebriation that Mycroft has not allowed himself to approach so nearly in two decades, his phone vibrates again.

_10:13pm  
I’m having a beer. It’s shit beer. -GL_

Mycroft slowly pecks out a reply with one hand.

_I’m having scotch. It’s not very good._

Then he deletes it, letter by letter, and switches the phone off.

* * *

In the morning, the first thing Lestrade does after slamming his alarm clock into submission is reach for his phone.  The charging cable is too short and the port connection too snug, so instead of tugging out of its socket when it reaches the limit of its extension, it nearly swipes the clock, a lamp, and his reading glasses onto the floor.

Swearing a blue streak, he yanks the cord free at last and rolls back into the sheets with it.  The morning review of his late-night texts has become his own kind of personal walk of shame, except he can’t talk away the gritty feel of it with sleep deprivation  _or_  alcohol this time.  Withdrawal from the attentions of a tall and insufferable bastard by the last name of Holmes was an equally unacceptable reason, although much closer to the truth, so he chalks it up to the dogged determination of any good detective and calls it even.  

Swearing a bit more, Lestrade kicks off the sheets and stretches, flinging his arms wide, phone clutched in his left hand.  

_7:32am  
Coffee counts as a drink, too, you know. -GL_

And Lestrade  _really_  doesn’t have an excuse for that one.

* * *

Somewhere across the city in a well-appointed private house, Mycroft pauses in the act of tying his tie and glances at his vibrating phone.  He carefully finishes the knot before picking it up.  After he reads the text, he puts it back down, and swallows thickly past the hard lump in his throat.

Odd, that.  Perhaps he's done the knot too tight.

* * *

Mycroft’s mobile is not so much an inevitable extension of his work as it is a cybernetic prosthetic that has grafted itself to him, the removal of which would be crippling.  When weighing this fact against the balance of the stabbing sensation Mycroft experiences every time a new text from Gregory Lestrade arrives and he forces himself to summarily ignore it (for his own continued optimal operation; for his own safety; for his own  _sanity_ \--)

Sacrificing a limb to save the body begins to look like an increasingly tempting solution.

As soon as he gets into the office he flags down Anthea and hands her the phone.  “Bring this to me if, and only if, the message is work-related.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mycroft breathes easy for several hours.  Around midday, Anthea comes in, his phone held in her outstretched hand. He takes it without a word, not looking at it immediately, still distracted by a report lying open on his desk.  Gradually, he shifts his focus.

_12:22pm  
Sherlock’s not cooperating on the bank tunnel investigation.  Can we meet to discuss options? -GL_

Mycroft glances up sharply and barks “ _Anthea!”_ before the click of her heels has a chance to disappear down the corridor.  She pauses in the doorway. “I said work-related only,” he reprimands.

Her brows contract.  If Mycroft were a better man and Anthea a lesser woman, he would have regretted his snappish tone. “You’ve also said that Sherlock comes before work.”

He picks up the phone and holds it out to her.  “It seems I was imprecise in my directions to you this morning.  Please ignore any and all incoming texts from Detective Inspector Lestrade, regardless of whether they concern Sherlock Holmes.”

She turns the phone thoughtfully in her manicured hand, but stops when the scratch of Mycroft’s pen ceases.  She looks to find him staring straight through her, his mouth as unyielding as a gap in the sidewalk.

“Yes, sir.”  A hesitation, and then: “Might I bring the car around anyway? Just in case?”

Mycroft glares at his half-finished document before conceding defeat and throwing down the pen, watching the nib splatter ink with grim vigor.  “You may as well.”

* * *

“You going to tell us why the  _hell_  you were caught digging a tunnel underneath a major London bank yesterday?”

“Got lost on my way to China.”

Lestrade glues his hands to his hips to prevent himself from using them for less docile purposes.  Obstinacy, and the Holmes brothers’ abilities to keep their mouths shut when it suits their whims, is entirely at odds with their loquaciousness at any and all other times.  As witnessed by the continued silence of his mobile.

Sherlock says something sharp in his direction and his head snaps up.  Damn. He’d been distracted there for a moment.  One mulish Holmes he can handle, but two--?

“Sherlock,” Lestrade says suddenly, “don’t make me drag your brother into this.”

Sherlock scoffs.

“I mean it.” To demonstrate, Lestrade brandishes his phone.  “He was at the scene yesterday.  You can’t honestly get me to believe he isn’t interested in this investigation.”

“He isn’t.”

Over Sherlock’s shoulder, Donovan rolls her eyes and throws up her hands.  “If even Big Brother doesn’t make him nervous, you don’t have a chance, sir.”

“Yes,  _thank you_ , Donovan, you’ve been very helpful.”

Just in case, Lestrade sends Mycroft a text anyway, and then spends a fruitless ten minutes alternating with Donovan, trying to pry information out of Sherlock.  It’s like trying to pull teeth from a shark-- futile, because they just keep growing back.  

After a quarter of an hour the door opens, and the spoken-of devil appears, his lapels sharper than any pitchfork and his shoes shinier than any manic eye-twinkle.  Lestrade's gaze lingers a mite too long, but Mycroft never notices, because Sherlock immediately perks up from his intense examination of the dingy floor and grins.

“Did he really phone you, or did you just miss me?”

Mycroft nods curtly at Lestrade and hovers at his shoulder until Lestrade cedes his seat facing Sherlock. He folds his hands over the cane of his umbrella, braced neatly between his knees, and his brother leans forward, mirroring him with steepled fingers and a cool regard over the tops of his nails.  

Now, it’s Lestrade’s turn to hover, although he does take the precaution of dismissing Donovan, who mercifully goes without a word.  He can’t stop her from lingering in the observation room, but at least he has reduced the potential for collateral damage in the face of the oncoming verbal bloodbath.

“Don’t you have paperwork to file, Inspector?” Mycroft asks. 

He does, but it can wait. “Nope.”

“A case to be getting on with, perhaps?”       

“Even if I did, I technically can’t leave you alone with him, since you’re not his solicitor.”  It's... _technically_ true, but given the number of loopholes extant in the penal code, it's also one of Lestrade’s more egregious lines of bullshit this week.  But those same metaphorical bulls couldn’t drag him from the room now, and neither Holmes calls him on it, so he stays. He can barely be arsed to care that he's not sure whether it’s out of self-interest in reducing the radius of the brothers’ mutually assured destruction or because he doesn't want to have to stop looking at the neat line of Mycroft's suited shoulders.

Mycroft turns away from Lestrade like he is no more than a television program he has lost interest in.

“I want my phone call,” Sherlock says immediately.

“Uncooperative and hostile robbery suspects don’t get phone calls.”

“Give me my phone and I’ll stop being uncooperative and hostile.”

Mycroft lifts a few fingers from his umbrella in a dismissive wave. “I could leave you here to rot, if you’d prefer.”

“Trying to teach me a lesson?’

“Oh, Sherlock. This isn’t a lesson. This is detention.”

Lestrade snorts softly. 

“Oh, come now,” Sherlock mocks.

“If we could perhaps return to the situation at hand? I am a very busy man, and so is Lestrade.”

Sherlock rearranges his fingers underneath his chin, and Lestrade watches his gears begin to whirr.  “Judging by the uncomfortable slope of your trapezius muscles, you’re carrying something that isn’t yours in your left breast pocket.”

“Now really isn’t the best time for this, brother mine.”

“Show me.”

“No.”

“Show me,” he repeats, robotic in his repetition.

Every hard line in Mycroft’s neck shifts, and Lestrade can suddenly see the hidden tension that Sherlock had so unerringly picked out.

“ _Fine_ ,” Mycroft spits. He unbuttons his jacket and throws it wide, pulling out his mobile with an exaggerated flourish.  He twists it between two fingers in the air under Sherlock’s nose.  “I can assure you, this belongs to me.”

The folding table squeaks as Sherlock leans a little more of his weight over his elbows.  His eyes skip over the phone. For a shard of a second, his steepled fingertips slip out of alignment, and then shoot back together again.  “It’s not the phone that’s bothering you,” he slowly realizes. “It’s what’s on it.”

Very deliberately-- so deliberately restrained that even Lestrade recognizes the façade which hides the desire to be  _un_ restrained-- Mycroft slips his phone back into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and narrows his eyes.  “State secrets, mostly; as to which I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific. If you can.”

Sherlock’s self-satisfied monkey’s grin slides onto his face. “Is that what you’re calling them? _State secrets_?”

“I _am_ the _state._ Therefore I would hazard to claim the moniker as applicable.”

Somewhere during this exchange, although not for the life of him can Lestrade think _when_ , he'd lost his tenuous thread of understanding.  He catches Sherlock flicking amused glances his way, and the thread flutters tantalizingly, just out of reach.  

Sherlock spreads both hands out on the table and draws a meaningless pattern with one finger.  “Have you shared this...secret... with anyone else?”

There’s that glance again.  

“It’s been dealt with,” Mycroft informs his brother steadily.

“Oh, I think not,” Sherlock sings, with a gleeful snap of the _t._  He’s near to laughing now, and he seems to want to share the joke with Lestrade, but Lestrade simply can’t see what’s so fucking  _funny_ and if he’s honest it’s beginning to get a little bit on his nerves.

He opens his mouth to cut in, but before he can, Mycroft-- whose gaze has not once left his brother’s in the past quarter of an hour he’s been in the room-- clips out, “Are we done?”

“I suppose.”

“Will you cooperate with the Yard’s investigation?”

“May I have my phone?”

Mycroft looks his brother up and down. “Give it to him.”  Faintly, Lestrade can hear Mycroft’s teeth grinding.  He has no idea how or why the situation turned on its head so quickly, but it seems to be going well for himself, so he turns and pantomimes  _phone_  towards where he knows Donovan is watching behind the two-way mirror.  

Sherlock instantly puts out a hand for it, waiting lazily until Donovan buzzes into the room and slaps it down into his waiting palm.  He checks it cursorily and announces, “As of thirteen minutes ago I am now at liberty to fully cooperate with  _our_   _dear_  Lestrade. Ask away, and ye shall receive.”

The chair grates in that ear-rending way only metal on concrete can achieve as Mycroft scrapes it back and rises.  He gives Lestrade another curt nod and sweeps out, narrowly avoiding clipping Donovan’s shoulder as he goes.

Before Sherlock can stand himself Lestrade smacks his hand down on the back of his chair, pinning him.

“What was all that about?”

He gives an eye roll that Lestrade has seen dozens of times. Typically, one of his catchphrases follows closely:  _you see, but you do not observe,_  or somesuch.But not this time. _“State secrets_ , Gavin; surely you were listening.”

“You kept looking at me.”

“No I didn’t.”  

“Sherlock, yes you--” but Lestrade’s protest dies in his throat with one eyeful of the mirth and malevolently withheld knowledge glinting in Sherlock’s eyes, and he gives it up as a bad deal and cuts his losses. “Donovan. Debrief him. I need--”  _a drink--_ “some coffee,” he finishes.

He leaves, but doesn’t procure a libation of any kind. Instead, he locks himself in his office and fishes out his phone, thumbs flying over the chiclets.

_1:15pm  
You came about Sherlock, which means you haven’t blocked my number. -GL_

_Why? -GL_

Eventually, he gets that coffee after all, and considers-- but ultimately discards-- the option to make it Irish. He does some paperwork. He worries the strangeness of Sherlock’s interaction with his brother in the back of his mind, like a scattered jigsaw faced with a determined grandmother, and-- yeah, he may not be as quick as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, but things slowly begin to take shape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted May of 2016; takes place sometimes during S3, if I'm remembering my own continuity correctly. (Hey, even ACD couldn't do it; cut me some slack.) This chapter has been lightly revised as of June 2017.


	2. Chapter 2

_6:28pm  
_ _I think I’ve figured it out. Took me long enough, but I did. -GL_

 _7:19pm  
_ _Your brother was fair bloody obvious about it. -GL_

Mycroft puts the phone down delicately, yet far away from him, as though it were carrying a highly infectious disease. He paces the room. He damns his brother for his meddling, first and foremost; and then he damns himself, for having been so careless as to leave the clues around for Sherlock to snap up in the first place—practically daring him to put it together, as Sherlock had unsubtly dared Lestrade to do the same; and now they had both taken up the gauntlet and risen to the challenge. As he must now do himself.

 _7:35pm  
_ _Feel free to enlighten me. -MH_

 _7:38pm  
_ _It lives!- GL_

_7:39pm  
_ _I don’t like to be kept waiting. -MH_

_7:41pm  
_ _I’m the state secret, aren’t I? -GL_

_7:42pm  
_ _I am at a loss as to what could have given you that impression. -MH_

 _7:56pm  
_ _I tried to explain it the way Sherlock would’ve, but to tell the truth? -GL_

_7:57pm  
_ _It was the “our dear inspector” that gave it away. -GL_

Honesty. How futile, but how uncommon, in his line of work, and so—

He finds himself smiling. Goddamn Gregory Lestrade, for having gotten him used to smiling.

 _8:23pm  
_ _Drinks? -GL_

 _8:23pm  
_ _No. -MH_

 _8:24pm  
_ _Give me a reason why not. -GL_

 _8:24pm  
_ _Give me a reason why. -MH_

 _8:31pm  
_ _Love the way you can cut a man down with one snappy line. Especially when you do it to Sherlock. Maybe even a little when you do it to me. -GL_

Mycroft covers his mouth with a traitorous, trembling hand, but before he can manage to wrangle it into submission to type a response, Lestrade strikes again.

 _8:33pm  
_ _But just for drinks? Didn’t think I needed a reason. -GL_

_[missed call from: GREGORY LESTRADE, 9:25pm]_

_11:02pm  
_ _The incident at the bank will be concluded by my office presently. Tomorrow morning I expect you to remand Sherlock into my custody. I will be by your office personally to see that the appropriate papers are signed promptly. -MH_

* * *

 

Lestrade skips breakfast so that he can get into the office as early as humanly possible, and regrets it when his stomach is rumbling by 6:40. The pink-frosted doughnuts lying in the breakroom sing a siren’s song to him that eventually overpowers his desire _not_ to be caught with his mouth full of fried dough whenever Mycroft deems it to be “morning” and shows up for his brother.

It’s a good thing that Lestrade gave up gambling in his 20s, because he very easily loses that bet. An umbrella strides into his office around 6:45am, with a man attached to it seemingly as an afterthought.  Lestrade glances around for a napkin, finds none, and lays down his half-ingested pink-frosted doughnut directly on the surface of his desk, settling for licking his fingers clean. “Here for your sibling, Mycroft?”

Mycroft’s eyes flutter from the doughnut to Lestrade, his own face carefully noncommittal. The man, Lestrade knows, has _noncommittal_ down to an art form. Sometimes he wonders just what it would take to perturb him, if anything. Sometimes he’d like to snatch the ever-present umbrella from his hand and give him a sharp poke, like a bug under a microscope, just to see his reaction. Most times he’d like to snog the shit out of him, maybe in broad daylight, and see what _that_ would accomplish.

The opportunity seems nearer after the texts of last night, although only nearer in the sense that the Earth was nearer to the sun than Mars.

“Surely you’ve got lackeys for this,” Lestrade continues. His tongue darts out and surreptitiously checks for leftover frosting; he prays to a cruel and merciless God that he’s gotten it all. He doesn’t want to have this conversation looking like a third grader let loose at a bake sale while Mycroft stands before him, looking like he’d been sewn into his suit, a dusky blue thing that adheres to no modern fashion Lestrade was aware of (very few, it must be allowed), but which nevertheless looked like it had walked fresh off a Seville Row mannequin.

 _Worn_ by a mannequin, Lestrade amended, as Mycroft continued to say nothing, preferring instead to ferret around Lestrade’s desk until he found the custody paperwork he needed.

Mycroft snaps the cover back onto his fountain pen and pockets it. “I was going to be in the area,” he explains. “Thought I’d kill the proverbial second bird, as it were.”

Ah. So they’re _not_ talking about this, then. Lestrade feels frustration rising within him like carbonation in seltzer, but manages to push it back down. This was at least better than not talking at all. He repeated it to himself a couple times until he was convinced of it, and reached for his doughnut.

“Well,” he said around a mouthful of sprinkles. “Don’t let me keep you.”

The umbrella pirouettes neatly on Lestrade’s carpeting. “Actually,” Mycroft says, staring down at its progress, “my other business in the area was concerning  _you_.”

Crumbs go the wrong way down Lestrade’s throat, and for a minute, he chokes, reaching for the first available liquid—his flask—and then choking on _that_ , too, when the liquor burns going down. His cheeks burn, too, but he decides very firmly that it's only because of the alcohol.

With a sharp eye on the flask, Mycroft observes, “It seems we’ve both been drinking a lot as of late. Perhaps it would be economical to share one together for a change.”

Lestrade wants to smile, but the expression is caught by his disbelief. “What—what changed your mind?”

“Certain cultures once practiced a form of torture in which the victim was strapped beneath a source of water in such a way that steady drops would fall onto their foreheads.” Mycroft raises a rueful eyebrow. “A few drops of water, as you know, are harmless. But just as rivers carve away their beds over millennia, the combined sustained droplets could and did eventually erode away the skin and skulls of recalcitrant victims.”

Finally, as Mycroft’s ridiculous extended metaphor permeates his brain, Lestrade realizes that this is _happening_ , and that he’s allowed to smile, now. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I think,” he says. He steps forward, offering his hand. “So—drinks. Tonight. Shake on it.”

It's the hand that he hasn't licked. Nevertheless, Mycroft eyes it as though it has done him a personal ill.  _Nevertheless_ , he switches his umbrella into his off hand and slides his newly free one into Lestrade's.

Their palms rasp against one another, warm and dry, like an exhalation of relief. Lestrade’s traitorous eyelids flutter as he savors it, tries to memorize it as quickly as he can; letting his forefinger slip over Mycroft’s soft inner wrist and rub slowly.

"You have my number." They are close enough that the only appropriate tone for Mycroft to use is a murmur. "And you have frosting on your lip." 

In the moment it takes for Lestrade's free hand to fly to his face, Mycroft slips away, settling his umbrella into the crook of his arm and turning to leave. Donovan brushes by him in the doorway and catches Lestrade squinting into the reflection of his phone's dimmed screen, trying to scrub the sugar from his face. "Donovan, do I have sugar on my face?"

She peers at him. "No, sir."

"Bastard," Lestrade mutters.

"Sorry?"

"Not you," Lestrade says. "What do you need?"

"You're not going to like it."

Mentally, Lestrade is cycling through all the pubs he knows, imagining Mycroft sitting in each, and gradually discarding most of his options. "I don't know, Donovan. Try me." He shrugs, twirling his phone idly. "I'm in a good mood." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betcha all thought I'd never update this fic, eh? Well, here I am, and here it is. I finally got around to finishing series 4 tonight, and though it was a royal clusterfuck, it did have some really quality moments where Mycroft Shows Emotion. Thus, impetus and inspiration to dig out my old chapter two draft and post it. Thanks to those who've been subscribed and somehow stuck around-- you guys are the greatest. 
> 
> P.S. I realize that their text timestamps should be in 24-hour format but I can't be bothered to change them. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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